Quick Start

Get PulseViews tracking views in under 2 minutes.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.4 or higher
• PHP 8.1 or higher
• MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+

Installation

From WordPress.org

1. Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin
2. Search for PulseViews
3. Click Install Now, then Activate

Tracking Settings

Go to PulseViews → Settings → Counting.

• Tracking mode — PHP (server-side, most accurate), JavaScript (async, cache-compatible), or Both (PHP first, JS fallback)
• Track post types — which post types get view counts. Includes all custom post types.
• Session interval — minimum time before the same visitor is counted again. Default: 30 min.
• Count bot traffic — bot views are always stored but excluded from counts by default.
• Trust proxy headers — enable if behind Cloudflare, Nginx proxy, or a load balancer.

Display Settings

Go to PulseViews → Settings → Display.

• View count label — the word after the number. Default "views". Change to "readers", "hits", etc.
• Display style — Pill, Block, Inline, or Compact.
• Colour variant — Outline (theme colour), Filled (solid background), or Accent (--pv-accent CSS variable).
• Auto-insert position — Disabled, Before content, or After content.

Exclusions

• Exclude logged-in users — skip views from any authenticated WordPress user.
• Exclude roles — exclude specific roles even when "exclude logged-in" is off.

Geographic Tracking

Geographic tracking is disabled by default. Enable in Settings → Other → Geographic tracking.

Display Styles

• Pill (style="1") — rounded pill with eye icon. Three colour variants.
• Block (style="2") — bold inverted counter. Great above titles or in sidebars.
• Inline (style="3") — pure text, inherits your theme's font exactly.
• Compact (style="4") — small bordered badge for post card grids.

Shortcode Reference

Use [pulseviews] anywhere in post content, page content, or widget text.

[pulseviews]
[pulseviews style="1" variant="filled"]
[pulseviews style="2"]
[pulseviews label="readers" period="week"]
[pulseviews id="42" style="3"]

Auto-Insert

Set Settings → Display → Auto-insert position to "Before content" or "After content". The badge only appears on singular posts of the selected display post types, on the main query only — never in loops or widgets.

Installing PulseViews Pro

Pro: Reports

Access via PulseViews → Reports. Set a date range, choose grouping (Day / Week / Month), optionally filter by post type, and click Apply. The page shows four summary cards, an interactive chart, Top Content, Traffic Sources, Most Viral, and Geographic breakdown.

Pro: Export

Use the CSV and XML buttons top-right on the Reports page. The export applies your current date range and post type filter. CSV includes a UTF-8 BOM so it opens correctly in Microsoft Excel.

Hooks & Filters

// Check if Pro is active
$is_pro = apply_filters( 'pulseviews/is_pro', false );

// Fires after the free plugin boots
add_action( 'pulseviews/booted', function( $plugin ) {
    // register custom modules
} );

// Filter the formatted view count before display
add_filter( 'pulseviews/format_count', function( $formatted, $raw ) {
    return $formatted;
}, 10, 2 );

Database Tables

• pv_views — raw view events. post_id, ip_hash, session_key, user_agent, is_bot, country_code, referrer, viewed_at.
• pv_aggregates — nightly daily rollups by post. Used for fast chart queries.
• pv_post_totals — running totals per post. Updated on every view via UPSERT.
• pv_exclusions — IPs or session keys permanently excluded from tracking.

Troubleshooting

Chart shows no data

The chart falls back to raw pv_views if aggregates haven't been populated yet (WP-Cron runs nightly). Check that WP-Cron is running — install WP Crontrol and look for the pulseviews/aggregate event.

Views not being counted

Check: (1) Is the post type selected in Settings → Counting? (2) Are you logged in as an excluded role? (3) Are you behind a caching plugin without JS mode enabled?

Pro says "requires PulseViews"

Install and activate the free PulseViews plugin first, then activate Pro.